This invention was discovered and identified in Palm Beach County, Fla. It was a unique and distinctly different vegetative inclusion growing in a planting of the unpatented Zoysiagrass variety known as ‘Emerald’. ‘BA-305’ is postulated to be either a spontaneous mutation that originated from ‘Emerald’, or derived as the progeny from an outcross to an unknown pollen parent.
‘BA-305’ was initially propagated asexually from a single 1.5 inch plug taken from the off type inclusion noted above. Over a five-year period there have been multiple vegetative increases at various research sites throughout Florida, and ‘BA-305’ has remained uniform and genetically consistent. The denomination of this new invention is ‘BA-305’, but in commerce ‘BA-305’ has been tested under the synonym “Pristine Zoysia”, which will be its commercial designation in the United States.
The distinctness of ‘BA-305’ from ‘Emerald’, its putative progenitor, is based on four sets of traits including:                1) floral morphology;        2) leaf and stem morphology;        3) color and pigmentation; and        4) rate of growth and cover.        
Measures of disease and insect resistance yielded no significant statistical differences.
For the purpose of registration under the “International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants” (generally known by its French acronym UPOV Convention) and noting Sections 1612 of the Manual of Patent Examination Procedures the new variety of Zoysiagrass of the present invention is named ‘BA-305’.